Gluten-Free: Take 3

I am trying once again (take 3) to overhaul my life and be “gluten and dairy free” in the face of fearing eventual colon removal, and the impedium of Celiac’s Disease. I felt pretty bad yesterday, I was really anxious about many things and my stomach felt the turmoil more than anything. I have also been having some joint inflammation, just enough to feel cumbersome, for about the last 5 days. At 7pm I thought a workout would help, but halfway through the bus ride to the gym, I decided I would probably hinder rather than help myself, based on general malaise. So I got off the bus and walked to the grocery store instead.

The problem with going gluten free is that I have a budget, I can squeeze out $80 on a good week to spend on groceries, so I left with the following: fruit, veggies, chicken and a loaf of $10 gluten free bread that tastes like cardboard.

Then I got home and wanted to throw a tantrum like a frustrated 4 year old because I realize that half of the items already in my cupboards, which I hoped to use to compliment the items I just purchased over the course of this next week, are questionable at best. Every thing under the sun has corn starch-modified in it! What the heck! It would cost be hundreds to replace it all with gluten and dairy free products. It really makes me want to eat a loaf of nice and fluffy wheaty whole grain oven warm bread, and go to sleep.

I know this sounds oh-so melodramatic and woe-is-me and you want me to shhhhhh, everything is fine, and will be all right…but this little gnawing pinge of pain in my tummy, that won’t go away…is making me crazy.

In related news, I purchased a microwave today (Sunday)!

and it's red!

This is BIG deal, I haven’t had a microwave in any of the time I have been in Chicago (over 3yrs now), that actually isn’t such a big deal, I mean, living without a microwave is not difficult. But I realize that in each of my attempts to stick to a diet that caters to colitis, I am always derailed on a day when I am tired, really hungry, don’t feel like cooking, and all the meat is frozen anyway…so I end up ordering a pizza or some such thing. I have been known to speed up the thaw process for frozen meat by submerging the package in hot water, it works mostly, but then I eat wondering if that sort of drawn out and sometimes luke-warm process was just a way of harvesting bacteria.

I have seen several gluten/dairy free frozen (microwaveable) meals, so if I keep a few in the freezer, I am reinforced for battle on tired days. I have actually tried to make microwave meals in my wok or the oven before…I don’t recommend trying it. I don’t even want to know what they do to food to make it only edible when heated up rapidly, and when heated slowly (erm..the normal/natural method), it takes on strange shapes and consistencies.

I was so excited to set up and test out the microwave that I was really disappointed to find that I didn’t really have anything that was microwaveable in my fridge to have for lunch. I offered Jorge some re-heated coffee, he declined and I have to agree that’s sort of gross. So to complement my salad I poured some V-8 into a bowl and popped it in the micro’ (I have no idea if it is gluten-free…assumptions may be the death of me), viola! Soup!

I was halfway through my soup and salad when I realized that out of habit I had sprinkled feta cheese on top (damn you Costco! I have a tub of the stuff). Sigh…this will be a long process.

**Annabelle

Jorge and the girls are excited too, they just don't show it.

Buttonlet and Fermentation

This post serves as an interim marker:

I have about 5 subjects I feel compelled to explore in the blogosphere swirling around in the space between my brain and my computer right now. It’s been a physically and emotionally challenging week. I pulled a muscle at work, not terrible, but enough discomfort that I haven’t been running and am generally a grump. Physical injury is also injurious to general confidence I believe.

Within hours of my leg aching, I felt like I would never get all my reading done for school, or be able to lead my assigned class next wednesday. Then, I became convinced I had gained 20 pounds (admittedly, since my colitis Dx, I have gained about 6. A decline in good food decisions is apparently a coping mechanism. Plus before taking any medication food simply passed through me. euw.yuck.)

After that both of my dogs have been puking up what looks like pulled pork all weekend. My much adored papasan chair is now in the garage, up for grabs if anyone wants it! What does this have to do with the downward slope of confidence and the aggravation of injury, well, this: when I am in a bad mood, my dogs misbehave. If I am sad, they tend to sleep a lot, if I am frustrated or angry they chew and chew and chew, on everything, if I am a undefined bundle of nerves they are a generally undefined type of neurotic. It’s all true. On days when I feel things are good, they are of average energy and love to cuddle.

Moving on. I have a jar of buttons that my mother began filling when I was probably a toddler, perhaps it was my grandmother, I am not sure. Anyway I am going to slowly convert all those buttons into jewelry. I just finish the first installment of this project (so many projects! yay!), and it is posted on Etsy: www.starlessmedia.etsy.com . Check it out if you want. My shop is growing.

my first button-let. I think these were from a suit?

After you read this I would love to know what sorts of projects you have going. I realized that I have a lot of self-imposed (and not necessarily bad) stress from my own project list. Part of the American dream is productivity, so I think we all strive for that in our own ways.

I also find it interesting to note that my “project list”, “dream list”, and “goal list” are identical. Just semantics? I am not sure.

*Annabelle

Training #2

Saturday (9/5) 8am: 2miles with Team Challenge.

Today (9/7) 12noon: 5 miles on treadmill, 8/8:15 pace

Here to Serve

Evidence

Along with several other Team Challenge members and CCFA supporters I volunteered at the Oak Brook Half Marathon this morning. My assignment: water stop at mile 9.7. We had water, Gatorade, and energy gel packs. Being labor day I did have a slight regret for choosing to get up at 5am rather than sleep in and wake up sans alarm. However, I really enjoyed myself!

The Crew at Mile 9.7!!!

I really want to give credit to these runners. Out of 2,000 participants, only one was outwardly grumpy. There were, of course, a few people who seemed a bit harried as they came around the corner and past our tables, but that happens. 9.7 miles is a long way! Even longer when you consider there are more than 3 miles left to go!

I felt really excited about running in Las Vegas when I got home. After some play time with my pups, I ran 5 miles on the treadmill at the gym. I have made a string of bad food decisions over the last 3 days so the treadmill was a far friendlier option today as I would be able to stop and/or get to the restroom easily. Aside from a few aches it was good training run.

Here are some more pictures from Oak Brook. Happy Labor Day!

Running makes one thirsty.

*Annabelle

Training #1

I will start off with my first run geared toward my CCFA/Team Challenge fundraising and The Las Vegas Half Marathon. Check back (or subscribe) for my next post with more about my connection to the cause, and what’s to come. I will label all training related posts as such, and my other posts with have their usual random titles.

Finish of The Bastille Day 5k

Today’s run (actually 9/3/09):

2pm – 72 and Sunny

4.5 miles

35 minutes

Comments: I was really in the mood to run, so it felt nice from the first few steps. I find that when I am tired, or in any sort of negative mood it takes a while to find a stride and rhythm. But once I do, those very elements have an extremely calming effect. This happens walking too, I think that the rhythm of walking is to adults what a rocking chair is to an infant.

Las Vegas Half Marathon and CCFA/Team Challenge:

I assume that it is normal, no, required, that at the start of any new challenge one has reservations. I have run a few half marathons before, so the actual event isn’t what scares me, it’s many of the things along the way. Fundraising, and the fear of not attaining my goal there, is daunting. I think that could actually have gone without saying. Here are the things about this adventure that I think are worth noting and sharing:

1. This is the first time I am setting a time goal for any run over a 10K. I want to finish in Las Vegas in 1hr 45mins. That equates to maintaining an 8 minute per mile pace. There, I said it. It’s official.

2. The Race is in early December. That means cool/sold weather training. Granted I am from New Hampshire, but I really strongly dislike running when it’s cold. This is how it feels to me: like I am running in a smoke filled high-altitude chamber, with sandbags around my waist. Maybe I will learn to enjoy it, but it’s more plausible that I will simply endure it.

3. “Spinning my Wheels”. Here is what I learned in my 4 years of college, don’t go out too fast. Be conservative and keep your eyes on the competition, once you know their game plan, then you can go to work.

I still hadn’t mastered that philosophy when it was time to move on. I notice in my workouts now, (and sometimes when I am writing papers for school)I seem to have a philosophy of: go out with all you’ve got, then hold on for dear life.

Maybe this isn’t the best plan for successful goal fulfillment.

4. Time management. This is a busy season! Work, Grad. School, Puppies, Team Challenge! I think lots of naps, lots of coffee will be in order (and lots of support from you guys!).

So there it is. All the worries and apprehensions out in the open, now they don’t seem like such a big deal. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy following along with my efforts, I truly appreciate your support both in the form of donations, but also the less tangible type, in your well wishes and in following my training progress.

*Annabelle

Yoga Quest, What a Vision!

Just this morning I began to read Chuck Klosterman’s “Sex, Drugs, and Coco Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto”, forgive me for the early review, I am only on page 50, but thus far: fantastic. My dear Mr. Klosterman briefly discusses (by discuss, I mean blows off steam) the fact that no one is really self-aware. People generally do not have the ability to accurately categorize themselves; we are, as creatures of design, too optimistic for that. The ability to accurately describe oneself would mean to put a limit on our potential to be anything else (my extension). What we are able to do, as Chuck explains, is accurately perceive what the requirements are to fulfill such and so descriptions, and then we fake it so we can label ourselves as we please. Sounds about right to me.

This gem of modern wisdom is embedded in a chapter telling the tale of the authors experience with the video game “The Sims”, of which I quote: “Pundits like to claim that a game like the Sims taps into the human preoccupation with voyeurism, but it’s really the complete opposite. I don’t care about peeping into anyone else’s keyhole; I only want to see into Chuck’s.”

This exploration brought me to something I have been thinking about for the last couple of years, mostly since I turned to personal training fulltime as a viable way to pay the rent (ahem-scoff) forward. One of the myriad reasons a person becomes a personal trainer, or undertakes any serious physical regime is to embrace their true self, to do what makes them happy, to share their passion with other people, and blah-blah-blah, bip-bam-boom*.

I became a personal trainer because I was following my talents. However, I was doing so in a “those who can’t do: teach” sort of way. I realized that I hated the job I had (EMT), I was in a city where I had no family (Chicago) and I didn’t have the discipline, god-given talent, or self-confidence to do what I truly aspired to (Professional Triathlete/Writer/Keyboard-and-Rickenbacher Rock Queen). So, it wasn’t that I had lost 100 pounds and wanted to pay it forward, it wasn’t that I had a high-paying-yet-meaningless job and sought to soothe my soul, and it wasn’t that I loved to workout for hours a day and stuck to a raw diet, it was simply that I enjoy exercise, I am saddened by how much the average person abuses and neglects their body, and I enjoy making people break a sweat and smile.

So this “thing” I have been thinking about is introspection and self-actualization. More specifically, the act of seeking inner-peace and transcendence whilst surrounded by floor to ceiling (and sometimes ceiling too) mirrors. To illustrate: I presume that the discipline of yoga evolved in places where the acoustics are mostly unadulterated and mirrors have never been installed. Now, I understand that there are many reasons that a modern westerner practices yoga (I for one, on occasion, practice yoga for its Colon soothing benefits. Seriously.) Now, please accept my assumption here that people flock to their gym’s and local yoga studios to find inner piece.

We are on a daily basis hyper-aware of our physical-selves, with reflections of ourselves (windows, mirrors and more mirrors) and constant reminders of who we are supposed to be, where supposedly want to go, and what we want to acquire (read: invasive/pervasive/subversive marketing), that there isn’t much room left in the cerebellum, or time left in the day, to realize who we actually are, and what we are actually doing. Although Yoga is a physical craft, it’s goals (the 8 Limbs of Yoga), are (mostly) cerebral and behavioral. Yet, we visually, tactile obsessed modernites think we will find our “path” in a cramped, noisy, mirror laden gym.

I always wanted to go on a vision quest. The closest I’ve ever come was on my near daily jaunts into the woods behind my childhood home, I would have extremely forced meditations about saving my small New Hampshire town from an invasion of velocer raptors. In 1990, with my bright red jelly shoes caked with mud and tangles in my hair, I repeated that forced vision about ten times before I decided that David Bowie and gimp were far more deserving of my time.

As college approached, I began to crave a vision quest experience again, perhaps because Generation-Y didn’t seem to have many coming of age milestone experiences to offer, everything had just been sort of stretched out and then put into a blender. Then “Fight Club” hit theaters and in a 30 second scene, I realized, that even if I did have a bonafide vision, someone would walk in and turn on the lights, or otherwise prove my inner desires totally trumped and distracted. (watch: this and then this). I tried to meditate again, this time with my legs crossed, but I fell asleep. Then I considered yoga. But if I began to practice yoga, which was nearing its peak of “en vogue-holistic-cure-all” status, I would only be surrounded by images of myself in the mirrors.

What happens when you turn to yoga today, for introspection, or any of the other principles of yoga? You find yourself alternately tangling up and stretching out seeking peace. What I struggle with is how do you look within yourself when you are looking upon your reflected self looking back at your superficial self looking back at your reflected self desperately trying to see your inner self. Perhaps this is what we conventional beings want, as Chuck Klosterman points out, to see only ourselves. Maybe the reason I want to go on a vision quest isn’t to find my guide animal as a metaphor for the meaning of my own existence, perhaps I just want confirmation that I look just fine, and my life is very interesting indeed, to an objective eye. But what if I truly want to escape my carnal connection to reality, just for a while, and what if yoga is offered 25 times a day, in close proximity to my home and work?

The answer seems simple: close your eyes. To that, I dare you, reader, to stand on one leg, with the other leg wrapped around it like the red stripe on a candy-cane, with your arms overhead, similarly bound. Now, close your eyes.

Once you have gathered yourself from the floor, take a deep breath and, Namaste. Try again.

– Annabelle

* Guilty pleasure alert: I have been reading the “Halo” novels. Very subversive. If I were more self-aware I may consider myself a Sci-Fi Gamer Fan type-caste.

Silly Girl, Life Is For Boys

 

Just the other day I came out of the super market and said to Manuel, “Tabloids really make women look like helpless, clueless idiots.” Just a moment ago, whilst avoiding a final paper and perusing an online newspaper, I glanced at a Movie Review of “Post Grad”, which by the by, I have absolutely no designs to go see, and I happen to be an individual who will go watch fish swim in a toilet bowl if it happens to be at a movie theater. Anyway, the review is by Alonso Duralde and here is the opening paragraph:

“How can women stand to go to the movies at all, when so much of the product ostensibly aimed at them contain such misogynist messages? A vast majority of what are known as “chick flicks” seem divided into three categories: Girl, You Need a Makeover If You Want a Man; Girl, You Need to Completely Humiliate Yourself If You Want a Man; and Girl, You Better Forget About Pursuing a Career If You Want a Man.”

Agreed.

Annabelle

Sweat and Narcissus

To stay motivated on tired days I try to do my workouts in the unspecified time between clients. Today I was rather the mental fidget and with 40 minutes left to go on the stepmill (think: treadmill + stairmaster) I needed a distraction to keep me focused. As much as that sounds like a contradiction, it’s not. I was annoyed by everything on the television, not amused by my imagination, lacking the coordination to read and step (think: broken leg and missing teeth), fatigued of the redundancy of my iPod Shuffle, and not willing to spend the time with my thoughts.

I spent about 10 minutes looking around the room, I analyzed a few runners on the treadmills before me. Decided on how I could improve their gates, even though they likely didn’t want my advice, and probably haven’t even seen the weight room that lay 50 feet away, ever (people pay an amazing monthly fee to simply see 20 minutes of cardio equipment a few times a week, or less). Then I decided I didn’t care. So I looked at the other stepmills: two occupied, two not. Maybe a change in geography? Nah, I decided to stick with my machine, it was the most streaked and dotted of the bunch, and there were fingerprints on the television screen.

When I have the option of multiple machines to choose from, I typically choose the one with the most sweat left on it from the previous user (what? That’s disgusting! – hear me out). This way I know that someone else has already worked really hard, survived, and presumably then carried on with their day, as evidenced by the lack of blood on the hard plastic shell of the equipment. 

I still had a while to go, I played with the tilt and angle of the (now off) television monitor until it framed me into a reflected mug shot. I very often groan and generally opine about the detrimental psychological effect of spending my days in a work environment where I am surrounded by mirrors. Yet here I was, contentedly enthralled by the dexterity of my eyebrows and clavicular articulations for 30 minutes.

Casual-Causal Friday

I long ago realized that becoming an actual professional in the industries mostly associated with writing is not going to work for me. Rather than go off on a self-indulgent, likely mundane speech of justification: chalk it up to a poor fit. However, I am intrigued by the observation that many jobs within the diverse and competitive world of all things media, or medium (read: anything artistic) request a link to your blog or website.

This strikes me as odd. The general perspective on working life that we are reared with is that as an adult one often has two persona: home, work. Remember? “Never mix work and pleasure”. We hear it in movies, we hear it as sage advice when warned not to date a coworker, although that phrasing always bothered me. Remember? “Don’t shit where you eat”.

Fact: working life is becoming continually more casual (read: jeans and flip-flops). Fact: the boss is the biggest potty mouth, probably a slob in private, possibly racist, definitely lies about his/her hobbies. Fact: you can be fired because of you choice of pop-culture comestibles. And I don’t mean hot dogs.

A friend of a friend was applying for a job about a year post-college graduation. They made it to the third and final interview. The interview was great, references had been called, pay had been discussed, and this individual and the boss-to-be hit it off so well they exchanged MySPace”names”. Fact: MySpace at that time still held the crown of hip, which they now covet the hell out of as it’s perched on Twitter erm, Facebook. That evening another candidate was hired.

Regardless of how casual you think the world is, do not list your hobbies as: partying 24/7 and jello-shots off hot chics, or your career goal as: keg stand record holder, or your best attribute as: big penis, or your best character trait as: underachiever.

Moral of the story; we are absolutely judged, on equal scale professionally and personally, by our private sells. Your guilty pleasures will sell you out every time. The division of work and pleasure has always been confusingly blurry. Everyone cries at the office eventually. We all state opinions better kept to ourselves, and it doesn’t matter if it was at a board meeting, behind a sales counter, in line at the grocery store, or over Thanksgiving dinner after which you may actually never see your maybe-not-so-favorite-aunt-anyway, again. It’s a nearly insurmountable challenge to decide what is too much and what is not enough to say.

We all walk around, seemingly clear-headed but actually harboring many personalities all out own. It’s an arduous taste to keep these selves separate but equal, and the failure rate it increasing at a rate perfectly matched to the growing debt of generation-Y.

I tried, at the start of this post to charmingly disguise my own absolute need to clear the constant inner monologue clutter from my mind in a quasi-realistic public forum as something other than a totally self-indulgent act, I trully hope you scoffed, pointed at your screen and at least thought, if not declared “bullshit!”.

Welcome to my blog, I am generally average, without exaggeration, I am. I henceforth start a journey to embrace my averageness, and exploit my awareness of all my own efforts to compensate for the feeling of running on a treadmill that we all experience, when all we want is a little comfort and a little, whether earned or not, encouragement and comradeship (read: not a declaration of communist sentiment, but open to discussion)

That said, please read, enjoy, judge, react, respond (subscribe?), and generally keep me company in the confusingly intriguing faux life.

-Annabelle